August 8, 2014 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has announced its 2013–2014 Section Award winners. The Section Awards annually honor particularly notable achievements made by member sections in a range of activities that help fulfill the Institute’s mission. The Institute believes that vital, active sections are essential to its success.

Section awards are made annually in five categories based on size of membership. Each winning section receives a certificate and a cash award – $500 for first place, $200 for second, and $100 for third. The award period covered is June 1, 2013 through May 30, 2014.

The Outstanding Section Award is presented to sections based upon their overall activities and contributions through the year. The winners are:

The Career and Workforce Development Award is presented for section activities that focus on career development, such as time management workshops, career transition workshops, job benefits workshops, and technical versus management career path workshops. The winners are:

Very Small: First Place: Sydney, Michael Spencer,
career and workforce development officer.

The Communication Award recognizes sections that develop and implement an outstanding communications outreach program. Winning criteria include level of complexity, timeliness, and variety of methods of communications, as well as frequency, format, and content of the communications outreach. The winners are:

The Harry Staubs Precollege Outreach Award is presented to sections that develop and implement an outstanding STEM K–12 outreach program that provides quality educational resources for K–12 teachers in the “STEM” subject areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The winners are:

The Public Policy Award is presented for stimulating public awareness of the needs and benefits of aerospace research and development, particularly on the part of government representatives, and for educating section members about the value of public policy activities. The winners are:

The Young Professional Activity Award is presented for excellence in planning and executing events that encourage the participation of the Institute’s young professional members, and provide opportunities for leadership at the section, regional, or national level. The winners are:

Very Small: First Place: Sydney, Arnab Dasgupta, young professional activities officer, Second Place: Delaware, Daniel Nice, young professional activities officer.

Small: First Place: Savannah, Kyle Finnegan and Ryan Vas, young professional activities officers.

Medium: First Place: Tucson, Eric Hoffman-Watt, young professional activities officer; Second Place: Tennessee, Henry Horne, young professional activities officer.

Large: First Place: Northern Ohio, Roger Tokars, young professional activities officer; Second Place: Cape Canaveral, Anthony Mansk, young professional activities officer; Third Place: Phoenix, Joshua Loughman, young professional activities officer.Very Large: First Place: Dayton/Cincinnati, Robert Mitchell, young professional activities officer; Second Place: National Capital, Scott Fry, young professional activities officer; Third Place: Hampton Roads, John Wells, young professional activities officer.

The Outstanding Activity Award allows the Institute to acknowledge sections that have held an outstanding activity deserving of additional recognition. The winners are:

Very Small: Adelaide, Matthew Tetlow, section chair. ISS – International Young Professionals Panel. The panel was made up of a group of young professionals: Andrea Boyd, ISS Operator at the European Astronaut Centre, Kathleen Coderre, Systems Engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, and Maria Kuleshova, Technical Engineer, from Moscow. They each talked about their country’s ISS experience and human spaceflight program, together with the selection process to become an astronaut. Following their talks, there was a question and answer period to ask about the ISS and the path that each young professional has taken in their career.

Small: Northwest Florida, Ben Dickenson, section chair. Exploring Mars. The NW Florida Section of AIAA organized and led a lecture series from NASA Engineer Bobak Ferdowsi. Mr. Ferdowsi was a ground level engineer on the Mars Curiosity Rover program. He also entered into pop-culture when he famously wore a Mohawk in the control room during the initial landing of the Curiosity Rover. He quickly became known as the ‘Mohawk Engineer’ and became the voice of the program. Mr. Ferdowsi was brought in by the local section and provided three lectures in one day. The first lecture was just for local students where more than 1100 students showed up to learn about the NASA program. The second event was held for the award winning Niceville High School Robotics Club. This event was an intimate lunch with Mr. Ferdowsi and 15 students. The third event was a more technical briefing provided by Mr. Ferdowsi to AIAA members and other space enthusiasts on Eglin AFB. This briefing was attended by 105 professionals and was well received.

Medium: Michigan, Thomas Mirowski, section chair. Rocket Labs. Engineers from the Michigan section built and launched real rockets from Estes Rockets with students at K-12 schools. A team of two visited each class to give a brief presentation on rocketry and then build and launch rockets with a rocket for every 2-3 children. The presentations demonstrated details surrounding the rockets history, importance, and science and math. The members also shared stories on how they became engineers and what they do at their jobs. The rockets were provided by a grant from AIAA and the Michigan Section. The number of students exposed to aerospace as a career as well as the positive experience that the engineers and teachers had will certainly make the event worth repeating and expanding next year.

Large: Orange County, Joseph Justin, section chair. Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) and Rocketry Club. The Orange County Section sponsorship of TARC was part of the Section’s STEM and Educational Outreach program. TARC is an international rocketry contest. The Orange County section mentored 10 teams that designed, built & flew a rocket to 825 feet, in timed flight carrying two raw eggs. The competition was open to 7th through 12th graders. The top 100 teams competed in Washington DC. The Orange County Section mentored teams from 13 cities and 16 schools.

In addition, the Section actively supports the AIAA Orange County Rocketry club. The rocketry club is for all ages but aimed at getting youth involved with science, engineering and technology through rocketry. The club meets once each month and has at least one launch outing each month. Students begin by building commercial kits, then go on to design and build rockets using a Computer Aided Design program.

Very Large (tie): Greater Huntsville, Ram Ramachandran, section chair. National Engineers Week. The Greater Huntsville Section organized a week full of activities. They conducted activities to promote STEM for each phase of educational development (K-12, College, YP, Professional). They held a panel of Young Professionals (YP) on the topic of Additive Manufacturing at AIAA's Technical Committee on Management (TCM). They also held a YP mixer with members of the AIAA TCM which was well attended. Additional activities included a tour of United Launch Alliance’s manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama. The section and the University of Alabama in Huntsville Student Branch co-hosted a lecture by Dr. Mark Tischler, Army Senior Technologist at Ames Research Center and they also co-hosted the 20th Annual Great Paper Airplane Contest.

Very Large (tie): Pacific Northwest, Kimberly Hicks, section chair. Rising Leaders Forum. This Technical Symposium brings many professionals together from across their disciplines. The Rising Leaders Forum provides an opportunity for young professionals (YPs) to have special professional growth opportunities and to create a community of YPs passionate about aerospace engineering. The Forum included a standing-room only presentation discussing Professional Development in a Changing Aerospace Environment and recommendations for today’s rising leaders to become successful. As part of this event, the AIAA YPs were invited to participate in the speed mentoring portion of the program.

AIAA is the largest aerospace professional society in the world, serving a diverse range of more than 35,000 individual members from 80 countries, and 100 corporate members. AIAA members help make the world safer, more connected, more accessible, and more prosperous. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org, or follow us on Twitter @AIAA.